Realtor Marketing Technology Blog

     The key to writing for sellers is to understand that people are persuaded to act either to avoid pain (be it emotional, physical, or spiritual) or to gain pleasure (be it real or anticipatory). So, with that in mind, we’ll want to design our ads to appeal to the sellers on this innate, emotional level. That is, we’ll want to push some emotional hot buttons. For example, this ad promises to move the potential buyer away from loss (a pain):

 

    

Here’s an example of moving towards pleasure (it addresses greed):

Call for your free homeseller report. 555-1212

XYZ Realty 

 

when you sell your home! Visit http://www.yourname.com/freerpt.htm    

 

     Your headline, or the first three to five words in your small classified ads, will make or break your advertising campaign. If you don’t capture the attention of your reader with your headline, anything beyond is useless effort and wasted money.

     Successful headlines are often written as promises, either implied or direct. The former promises to show you how to save money, make money, or attain a desired goal. The latter is a warning against something undesirable. In other words… I promise to show you how to feel good about yourself (a pleasure) or I promise to show you how to keep yourself from getting in a wreck, losing money, and making a fool out of yourself (a pain).

     A PROMISE: Sell Your Home in 90 Days or Less–Guaranteed!

     A WARNING: 7 Reasons Most Homes Don’t Sell for Top $$!

     Headlines that ask a question are also powerful. They seem to attract the reader’s attention almost as surely as a moth is drawn to a flame. Once he’s seen the question, he just can’t seem to keep himself from reading the rest of the ad to find out the answer.

     The best headline questions are those that challenge the reader; that involve his self-esteem, and do not allow him to dismiss your question with a simple yes or no. For example:

Find out. Visit www.yourname.com Now.

     "You’ll be the envy of your friends" is another appeal to incorporate into your headline whenever appropriate. This appeal works because everyone wants to be well thought of, and consequently, will read into the body of your ad to find out how she can gain the respect and accolades of her friends.

     Wherever and whenever possible, use colloquialisms that are not usually found in advertisements. The idea is to shock or shake the reader out of his reverie and cause him to take notice of your ad. Most of the headlines you see day in and day out, have a certain sameness with just the words rearranged. The reader may see these headlines with his eyes, but his
brain fails to focus on any of them because there’s nothing different or out of the ordinary to arrest his attention. And if you don’t capture your reader’s attention… the game is over before it even had a chance to begin.

     Example: Is your home HAUNTED? Is the ghost of 1970 style real estate marketing preventing your home from selling? Find out before it’s to late.

     "How To" headlines have a very strong basic appeal.

     "Who Else wants to know" is another approach with a very strong reader appeal. The psychology here being the need of everyone to belong to a group – complete with status and prestige motivations.

     Whenever, and as often as you can possibly work it in, you should use the word "you" in your headline, and throughout your copy. After all, your ad should be directed to "one" person, and the person reading your ad wants to feel that you’re talking to him personally, not everyone who lives on his street.

     Personalize, and be specific! You can throw the teachings of your English teachers out the window, and the rules of "third person, singular" or whatever else tends to inhibit your writing. Whenever you sit down to write advertising copy intended to generate leads… you should picture yourself in a one-on-one situation and "talk" to your reader just as if you sitting across from him at your dining room table. Say what you mean, and sell HER on the value of your offering. Be specific and ask her if these are the things that bother her – are these the things she wants – and she’s the one you want to provide a solution for.

Happy Selling!

Brandon Patrick

Dean of Students

Real Estate Toolbox University

 

 

 

High speed internet, laptops, cell phones, PDA’s, text messaging and call capture systems (800#’s). The best system that we have found is Adtrakker ( www.adhotline.net/58419 ). Modern technology at its finest. And perfect devices you can use to leverage your time and income. For example, we use call capture systems to:

·         Generate leads for both buyers and sellers

·         Answer all calls from these lead sources

·         Deliver an educational and benefit laden message to all callers

·         Soft qualifies all callers

·         Answers the same questions asked by most callers

·         Guides callers into the next step in the marketing sequence

·         Requests and records callers name, address and phone number

·         Requests caller to make a direct call into the office

·         Send Fax Back brochures of a property of special report to a potential client

We also use call capture systems to:

·         Provide an audio brochure of our listing inventory

·         Provide a "seller’s update" service eliminating the need for personal calls

·         Provide a "FSBO Helpline" which educates and helps generate leads

We use modems and faxes to request lender information, property specs, and referrals. We use cell phones to make calls, check email and utilize text messages while on the road. We use cell phones as "announcement" devices letting us know when our internet site has received a response, when an ad has been called upon, and when a potential buyer has called on a property ad.

Use modern communications technology to leverage your time and efforts. Take a look at what’s available and think about how you could best use it. And, I promise you, you’ll be amazed and what you can get done… easier, faster, and with less headache and hassle.

6. Develop a local top-producer network

One agent I know absolutely refuses to work with sellers. Another absolutely refuses to work with buyers. I’ve asked both what they do with their "unwanted" leads and referrals. Their answers: "Nothing."  Oh, gee… that’s a brilliant, money-making answer! One thing’s for sure… it’s your ticket to leveraging your time, money and income potential. For example, one small-town California agent I know uses her top-producer network to generate over $500,000 a year in extra commissions by simply referring all her soon to be expired listings out to her competition. By giving them permission to solicit these soon to be expireds… chances are very good they will be relisted and sold. When they are, she gets a paid 25-30% referral fee. Money she would not have seen otherwise! In return, she too takes listings which were referred to her, earning 70-75% of her normal commission which she gets with very little (if any) competition!

Set up a fax-back system, or internet system  to gain valuable feedback concerning your listings.

Set up new "listing announcement" system. Either fax or email or have delivered all of your new listings to your top producer network. Have them do likewise.

Expand your network globally. Get yourself listed on numerous "referral" programs.  Develop a network of "non-competitive" professionals and meet with them once a week or so for the sole-purpose of lead generation. You get leads for moving companies and you give them away. They get leads for your services and they give them to you. What a deal! 

—Michael E. Gerber in his book, The E Myth.

You love the money and freedom real estate represents. But you know what?

Statistically you are doomed to fail. And you know it.

That’s why you have a love/hate relationship with the industry. You love the opportunity real estate represents, but you hate the thought of potential failure. The thought that it might all come to an end someday; the phone will stop ringing; your calls will stop being received; the market will take a nose dive right into the toilet…

When you chose real estate as your means to financial success… you set the stage for a play wherein there are only two roles—Heel or Hero.

The attrition rate in the real estate industry is even worse!Statistics tell us that if 60 individuals apply to take a prelicensing course, only 50 will complete the course. 32 will pass the exam on their first attempt. 25 will sign up with a local broker.

Of the 25 who enter the business, most will earn less than $24,000 a year. One will make over $75,000 their first year.

Five years from licensure, only 2 or 3 will still be in the business. Now, let’s see. By my count, that’s 57 "heels" for every 3 "heroes."

Now I don’t quote the stats to discourage you, but rather to introduce a key distinction you must make if you ever hope to make it big in this business…

Successful real estate professionals are not hobbyists. They have not embraced a career, or a part-time venture. They have decided to go into business, and they engineer their day-to-day activities in such a way as to work ON their businesses versus IN their businesses. And that is the key to their success.

Most agents and brokers (remember… most will fail or, at best, produce mediocre results year after year after year) arise every morning in search of the "deal". They spend their time seeking out new prospects, do their best to secure that business, finalize the sale… and go on to the next sale, the next deal. In other words, they spend the majority of their time working in their businesses!

They do all the prospecting. They place their own ads. Conduct their own open houses, complete their own paperwork, receive all calls, do all their own qualifying, interviewing, driving, showing, picture taking, sign placements, mls postings, mailings, and escrow closings. They do it all. And they’re good at it. They’ve mastered in the fundamentals, the nuts and bolts of the business… and, most will fail. Miserably.

The successful real estate professional, on the other hand, wakes up in the morning and goes about the business of creating a business. A big business. The "deal" is just one element of many—and not necessarily the most important.

The goal isn’t to secure a new deal… the goal is to create an enterprise, an equity-based business that can 1) run profitably independent of your efforts, 2) provide the means of an early retirement if that is what you want—a perpetual money machine, or 3) a salable business.

The successful real estate professional may work in their business when necessary, but their primary emphasis is working on their businesses—on the creation of viable, hugely profitable enterprise.

Key Distinction: Your business in not your life.

Your real estate career, your business, if you want it to succeed in a huge way… at its best, should be viewed as distinctly apart from you. Your business and your life are two totally separate things.

You, as an individual, will live and die according to how well you maintain your health, avoid accidents and disease. Your lifestyle will be determined by how much income you generate and how much free time you have available to enjoy the benefits of your income.

Your business will live and die according to how well it performs its one and only function: to find, satisfy, and keep customers. Your life is not our business. You do not live to serve your business; your business lives to serve your life. You have to make this key distinction, this "separation" if you ever hope to propel your business beyond your capabilities.

So, just how do you go about working ON your business versus working IN your business? How are you going to create systems… the ultimate in leverage?

Imagine you are given the assignment to create a hugely profitable real estate franchise. A turn-key operation. In other words, your task is to create a business that not only works, but is also 100% duplicable by anybody. An "out-of-the box" salable business. Plug it in and it works.

Not sometimes. Always. Without fail.

And remember… you won’t be there to run the show! You won’t be there to do all the work! The business model you create must be 100% duplicable… without your interference in any way, shape, or form.

Here are some more "rules" you should need to follow as you create your winning, duplicable business:

1. Your business model will provide consistent value to everyone directly or indirectly touched by it, its products and/or services. Your goal is not to provide outstanding service but, rather, ASTOUNDING service.

2. Your business will operate efficiently and effectively by people with the lowest level of skill and monetary requirements. Your $12-an-hour office manager should not be employed in a $6-an-hour telemarketing job. Likewise, if your $6-an-hour telemarketing personnel is capable of reproducing a press release, stuffing a few envelopes and mailing… why on earth would you even consider hiring super expensive PR agency to do the same thing?

3. Your business will be organized to the hilt. Sloppy habits make for a sloppily run business. There is not order to be found within the chaos as far as your duplicable business is concerned.

4. Every job, duty, and operating procedure will be formally documented in an Operations Manual. Remember your primary goal is to create a duplicable, "out-of-the-box" business. Everything must be organized, systemized, and documented so anyone who can read and follow simple instructions and do what you’ve determined needs to be done.

5. Your successful business will provide consistent, predicable results. Not sometimes. Not just when the market is good. Always. No excuses.

Leverage yourself. Think systems. Think how you can "sell in bunches."

 

Happy selling!

 

Brandon Patrick

Dean of Students

Real Estate Toolbox University